A Bishop Slams The Questionnaire

CRISIS Magazine - e-Letter
August 11, 2004
Dear Friend,

I'll keep it short today -- I just have a quick but important update to share with you.

You'll remember that two weeks ago, I told you about the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sending their presidential questionnaire to the candidates for review. The questionnaire covered just about every topic under the sun, from
abortion to immigration to broadcast communication, asking the candidates to give a "support or oppose" response so that the bishops could determine which candidate was most in line with Catholic teaching.

It all sounded pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, the questionnaire made no moral distinction between any of the topics, burying critical life issues -- abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and fetal stem-cell research -- among scores of other issues that simply don't have the same moral weight and on which faithful Catholics are free to disagree.

Well, it looks like at least one bishop shares our concerns. Just yesterday, Bishop Rene Henry Gracida, the bishop emeritus of Corpus Christi, Texas, published a statement wondering about the usefulness of a questionnaire that doesn't make a distinction between imperative life issues and debatable social policy issues.

Bishop Gracida makes some excellent points that I want to share with you, but rather than just quote bits and pieces of his statement, I thought I'd print the whole thing. (Don't worry, it's short.)

Believe me: You want to read this.

I only hope that his brother bishops -- and those in charge at the USCCB -- will make the same distinctions clear when the questionnaire is finally released to the public.

I'll talk to you again soon,
Deal
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STATEMENT OF BISHOP RENE HENRY GRACIDA
ON THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL QUESTIONNAIRE

I have had an opportunity to review a copy of the 2004 Presidential
Questionnaire submitted by the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops to President George Bush and Senator John Kerry. I am
disappointed that the Questionnaire is so broad and covers so many
issues that are before the American public today that its value in
helping to show the differences between the positions of the two
candidates on the really important issues will be minimal.

While certainly there could be and should be a "Catholic" position
on most, if not all, of the issues covered by the Questionnaire, from
the perspective of the Church's teaching some issues far outweigh
others in importance. For instance, there is no moral equivalence
between the issue of abortion-on-demand and farm subsidies. The
Questionnaire should have been much shorter and should have been
limited to questions on those issues on which there is a clear
unequivocal teaching of the Church, e.g., abortion, cloning, assisted
suicide, embryonic stem-cell research and marriage.

There is no clear unequivocal position of the Church on such issues
as the minimum wage, immigration, farm subsidies, etc. The inclusion
of questions in the Questionnaire can only result in confusion in the
minds of Catholic voters who do not understand that there is no moral
equivalence between these two groups of issues. I can only hope that
both presidential candidates will refuse to reply to the
Questionnaire, or, if they do reply, that the leadership of the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops will recognize the
danger to Catholic voters and will publish those replies with a clear
teaching on the greater importance which should be attached to the
replies to the first group of questions I have listed above that have
far greater moral implications for the Nation.

+Rene Henry Gracida
Bishop Emeritus of Corpus Christi
10 August 2004

In addition to innundating the USCCB with letters of protest about its ambivalence in the questionaire, we should also flood heaven with prayers asking God to help them and to help us.